Patience

Normally, I am a pretty patient person when it comes to customer service type stuff. If an order at a restaurant is taking a long time, usually I won't complain (it's the "spit in your food" thing here!). Or, if a person checking me out is taking forever, I will stand quietly and maybe give her a look or smile to let her know I would like to get going. But I am a believer that if you get bad service you should be compensated in some way. That's why when I got an order of chicken wrong once and got all the way home before I realized it, when I drove back to the restaurant and went inside, I politely asked for a dessert to compensate for the gas it took to correct their mistake. What could they say? It was yummy, and all the better because I stood up for myself. But that was a rare instance, normally I assume the person is doing their best and cut them some slack, especially if they are pleasant about the whole thing.

But as I sit right now waiting for a prescription to be refilled, I find that I am losing my patience. It all started this morning when I arrived for my chemo treatment. I got there at 9am. My nurse had me prepped and ready in no time, all we were waiting on was the drugs. There is usually a chemo pharmacist on the floor who is outstanding! Her name is Suzanne and she is sharp as a tack!!! She knows everything about everything chemo! She's the one who gets the drugs ready and I have never had to wait. They are almost always ready before I am ready. Well, today Suzanne was not there. Apparently, she is not ever going to be there again. Something about working relationships, management . . . I don't know. I just know that I was the first patient to arrive that morning and I did not receive my chemo drugs until 11:10. I sat for 2 hours waiting and waiting. And when the bag did arrive it was only the Avastin, the Abraxane was still not ready yet. Usually, I get the Abraxane first and I like that because it means I can use my cold caps before they get too thawed. Well, not today! I asked my nurse what was the deal because she was as frustrated as me. She explained about the new pharmacist situation. I asked if this new situation was permanent. She said most likely. That doesn't make me happy. I don't know if I have enough patience to deal with a 2-hour delay every Monday! That's definitely going to eat into my patience bank!

So, that was this morning. Now it's 5:30 and my patience is being tested again. While I was waiting on the chemo drugs, I put a call into my dr for a prescription refill. It's for Lortab, a narcotic that helps with my cough and chest pain. I had to leave a message (of course!) and heard the recording say the Rx would be called in by the end of the day. John went to pick it up at 4:00, no Rx . . . no phone call, no message from the dr, nada! I called the dr back and had to leave another message with the same lady. After a half hour I called the pharmacy to see if it had been called in. Can you guess? No phone call, no message, nada once more! I called the dr back and after waiting for 10 minutes, she finally came to the line. I explained my situation and she transferred me back to Beth, the nurse practiioner whom I know very well. But once again, I had to leave a message. It is now 5:30 and I have heard nothing from no one. No return call to say it was called in, no pharmacy call to say it's ready, nada. And now my patience is NADA!

Maybe I'm just grumpy. With the weather getting warmer, my hot flashes are getting worse which makes me irritable like PMS. Maybe I just need to relax and chill out with a glass of tea. Writing this post has helped some, getting it all out of my system. Maybe I can take Tylenol tonight with my cough syrup (which I hate!) and that will be enough to get me through til morning. Maybe tomorrow, I'll feel up to taking up the fight for my drugs! I just wish all this could be easier. I'm probably spoiled by now - all the dinners brought to my door, all the offers to take my kids off my hands, all the housecleaning, all the monetary gifts that we've put to good use, all the help I can't even remember it all to list! It's like I'm not getting the princess treatment from the medical community like I've gotten from friends and family and I'm having a little tantrum about it! Oh well, like all tantrums, ignore them and they'll go away.

One good thing that's cheering me up is the fact that I have off for the next two weeks!!! YAYYYYY!!! Today was the third dose in this second round, so that means I don't start the third round until May 23! I will have to go tomorrow for my neupogen shot and I'm praying that it doesn't give me the fever like last week. If so, then I will definitely be fighting for my drugs!!! I'll be down at the dr office pitching a Bannister fit (that's my mom's side of the family!) including pots and pans thrown and words screamed at the top of my lungs from the uncensored list!

Yep, I'm grumpy - see how I went from feeling positive to cussing out my doctor in one short paragraph! Time for that glass of tea.